10 Badass Beetles and the Technology They Inspire

In honor of the International Year of Biodiversity, PM takes a look at the 10 most badass beetles on the planet. They not only look cool, their nifty adaptations are inspiring products that range from autonomous vehicles to next-gen fire extinguishers.

1. Jewel Beetles

1. Jewel Beetles

Insect collectors and beetle-wing jewelry artisans prize the glittery, iridescent critters in the family Buprestidae, commonly known as jewel beetles. In the future, carmakers and minters may come to appreciate these beetles as well. A paper published in the journal Science last year described how a species of jewel beetle generates its shiny green color via a lattice of five-, six- and seven-sided cell structures. These cells reflect light like a liquid crystal, making them attractive from a design perspective for optical engineering applications. Potential applications include car paints that change color based on viewing angle and shiny seals for use as currency security measures.

2.Rhinoceros Beetles

2.Rhinoceros Beetles

The males in subfamily Dynastinae have protruding, gnarly horns, hence their name, and can grow up to six and a half inches long. In many parts of the world, gamblers pit these beetles in fights, and in Japan people can buy them as pets from roadside vending machines. Rhinoceros beetles also have received popular acclaim as perhaps the proportionally strongest creatures on Earth, with some species said to be able to lift over 800 times their weight. The key to their strength, as well as that of other insects, is their bodily construction. "Unlike vertebrates with a skeleton on the inside and muscles on the outside, invertebrates have their muscles on the inside and an exoskeleton on the outside, so these beetles are almost built like a robot, in a way," University of Nebraska entomologist Brett Ratcliffe says. Research funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) aims to make them downright cyborgs. Scientists at UC Berkeley have implanted electrodes and fitted radio receivers on large scarab beetles—the family that includes rhinoceros beetles—enabling them to be remote-controlled while in flight. These biomechanical beasties could someday aid in surveillance or search-and-rescue missions.